Ask HN: How to Foreshadow?
Are there any way where I can foreshadow certain things and only have it revealed at a certain date? With Proof this was written way before its current happening time?
Make a hash sum of the file.
Publish the hash of the document somewhere. Like on your Mastodon timeline or on Reddit, or on HN, or as an ad in a national printed newspaper.
Make sure the text is pretty long though. If you write something super short someone could guess the hash for it.
Write a short comment along with the hash. Something like:
“My prediction will be revealed on Dec 31 2025. Sha256 a9774a1a6ebf564cc408cfd86b5f2c06c13d830e143989714d958d34f325db13.”
When time comes, publish the document.
If you are on a platform that doesn’t support posting attachments you can use IPFS or similar to host the encrypted file.
You can skip the pdf and unless the thing is so short/predictable you can guess it outright, nobody is going to 'guess' the hash. E.g. 'I made up a random 64 byte sequence, here's its cryptographic hash, guess the sequence' - that doesn't happen.
It’s not going to consist of random bytes.
Imagine for example that a high profile celebrity accused of murder has successfully defended himself in court and on that day he tweets:
I have something to reveal, but I won’t be telling you until the year 2135. Sha256 73fa194342af6b6e355e129fafd9b19d2a63589b1e3c6e2b5d94a7ca1b3e25f6
If this happens to be a short sentence related to recent events, don’t you think someone will figure out what he wrote pretty soon?
> My prediction 683 will be revealed on Dec 31 2025. Sha256 a9774a1a6ebf564cc408cfd86b5f2c06c13d830e143989714d958d34f325db13.
> My prediction 684 will be revealed on Nov 7 2025. Sha256 17147091grhef7wy89908409849rwiruriwu87w980241989171n109288021982.
It would even be better to add it to a blockchain to ensure there is no backdating.